Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Creative products do not magically appear via wishing and pixie dust and good old fashioned hope. Yeah that's part of it for sure. But the rest takes good, old fashioned hard work and hustle.

I know, I know: no shit, Jaffe.

And I should know this.

Given how challenging it is to get a video game made, I should be as aware of this fact as anyone working in the creative industries. Every day all of us on a game deal with the pressures of budgets and schedules and expectations and creative differences and egos and technical snafus and our personal lives that affect how we do our day to day, and the pressures to be great that come from us, from our fans, from the press, from the haters,etc,etc,etc. It never, ever ends. Cause when one game is done, you're off to the next one. Hell BEFORE a game is done, you're already thinking about the next one.

It's a tough ass job to pull something worthy from the ether.

And I should know this.

I should know that ANY product- and certainly any creative product- is a multi year long battle just to push that motherfucking bolder to the top of the hill.

Speaking of, here's a little pic I keep taped to my monitor to remind me- when the days are hard as hell and you just want to give up- how great it feels to get that boulder to the top.

Yeah I know. I can't draw for shit. Fuck off. :)

And yet, when I read something like this (detailing the recent challenges and mad rush of the Disneyland corporation to turn around the California Adventure theme park using a 1 billion dollar influx of cash), I am still amazed. Because as a fan- with no stake or involvement in any theme park- I nurse this fantasy that theme parks magically appear and magically run and that there are no egos or budget issues or late nites or time away from family in order to make those truly magical places come to life. To me places like Disneyland simply ARE. They are wished into being and that's all there is to that.

And as a fan, this is how it should be. Unless you want to get into the business of making this stuff (and I highly recommend it cause it's a fucking blast!) then you really never should peek behind the curtain.

Cause if you peek behind the curtain you realize that this stuff- no matter the format- is HARD WORK.

But in many ways I am glad to see how tough the Disneyland people are having it right now. Because it makes me realize that EVERYONE who does creative work is always up against the shit, day in and day out. That it's ALWAYS a struggle. And that it's NOT just me, not just my design partner Scott Campbell out in Utah, not just the amazing team at Eat Sleep Play, not JUST the super talented folks at Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo. And not just people in games. But people in movies and music and comics and television and theme parks and plays and on and on and on.

So I dunno, in some ways, it makes me feel like part of a big ass, hard working club, you know? Like we're all busting ass just to make people happy. I like that :)

And speaking of busting ass- back to work! Later ya'll!

David

Just a shot of the tots of behind the scenes work being done at Disney's California Adventure to create the new CARS LAND area of the park. As a fan, I can't wait. But I'm sure the Disney peeps are shitting a brick to get it done in time :) Thanks Disney! That's why you get my money!

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